1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to a sheet paper controlling apparatus and method of using it, and it more particularly relates to a paper sheet controlling mechanism for helping to guide individual sheets of paper being fed seriatim to a printing station, such as a laser printing engine.
2. Background Art
There have been many different types and kinds of paper feeding and controlling mechanisms used for non-impact printers, such as laser printers or the like. For example, conventionally a stack of paper sheets contained in a paper tray of a laser printer is fed one sheet at a time to the laser printing engine for printing individual paper sheets. There have been a variety of different types and kinds of mechanisms for transporting the top sheet of the stack to the printing station. Such mechanisms must, for some applications, deliver the paper sheets at a high rate of speed within an acceptable jam rate.
One highly successful feeding mechanism is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,377,969, which is incorporated herein by reference as if fully set forth herein. The patented feed mechanism includes a pivotally mounted feed arm which extends into the open top paper tray and engages the top sheet of the stack. When the mechanism is activated, the top sheet is ejected from an angled end wall of the tray, and is delivered therefrom to the printing station.
While such a mechanism has proven to be highly successful for many applications, under some circumstances and some applications, the paper sheet being fed from the top of the stack along the angled wall of the tray can curl back away from the angled wall and out of its desired path of travel to a slight extent, thereby causing an undesirable and unwanted paper feeding jam. The curling of the paper sheet can be caused by a variety of conditions, including humid ambient conditions causing the natural paper curl to be exaggerated. Another reason for causing a paper jam is that the paper sheet can have a bent or curled corner, thereby causing interference with the desired smooth uninterrupted movement of paper sheets along the paper path.
Therefore, it would be highly desirable to have a new and improved paper controlling technique for helping guide the top sheet of a stack of paper sheets from a paper tray in an uninterrupted manner within tolerable jam rates. In this regard, such a mechanism should help reduce any unwanted and undesirable paper jams in an effective and relatively inexpensive manner. Also, such a mechanism should be continuously effective as the heigth of the stack diminishes during the process of feeding paper sheets individually therefrom down to the last sheet in the paper tray.